The exhibition bauhaus imaginista: Learning From explores the role of cultural appropriation at the Bauhaus and in the work of Bauhaus related artists and designers during the 20th Century. It departs from the example of Paul Klee’s 1927 drawing of a carpet that references traditional Maghrebi carpet patterns, which shows a Bauhaus Master’s interest in non-Western cultural forms.

From the mid 1930s onwards Bauhaus emigres, including Josef and Anni Albers, and Marguerite Wildenhain, travelled throughout the Americas observing, documenting and collecting handicrafts produced by pre-Columbian and indigenous cultures. Anni Albers and her fellow weavers, including a younger generation of Fiber Artists looked to ancient Peruvian textiles because of their complexity and the high social value afforded weaving in Inca society. An interest in vernacular handicraft and architecture can also be seen in the work and study of the second Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer and Bauhaus weaver Lena Bergner during the period they spent in Mexico.

The turn to the vernacular and to handicrafts was given a political dimension in post-independence Morocco, where the rejection of a French Beaux-Arts model by Moroccan artists of the early 1960s led to the re-evaluation of local North African crafts and the Bauhaus, both of which were integrated into the curriculum of the School of Fine Arts in Casablanca.

In Brazil, a new design school named the Institute of Contemporary Art (IAC)—established by the architect Lina Bo Bardi and Pietro Maria Bardi at Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP)—laid claim to Bauhaus lineage through its curriculum and faculty. However, this European modernist legacy was also resisted, leading Bo Bardi to study popular, Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous cultures in her effort to formulate a specifically Brazilian aesthetic. This reflected a broader post-war interest in cultural appropriation and developing new modernist vocabularies by turning to the cultures of marginalized groups.

As part of the exhibition bauhaus imaginista: Learning From, at Sesc Pompeia (October 25 to January 6th) a public discussion at the Goethe Institute, Sao Paulo, will explore questions of cultural appropriation, representation and ‘learning from’ handicrafts in the work of Bauhaus emigres their students as well as important modernist figures in Brazil; who studied and collected a wide range of cultures from outside the modernist main stream. They looked to sources including popular, indigenous, and non-western sources, to energize their work. → more

In sending out the manuscript of Native Genius in Anonymous Architecture to a publisher, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy added a note on the “Genesis of the manuscript,” which is quite revealing about the intellectual trajectory that gave rise to it. She positioned herself as first and foremost a traveling observer, learning from direct contact with artefacts and buildings, curious about their histories and willing to interpret material evidence and local narratives. → more

The Mexico of President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río was a fertile ground for the development of ideological questions, especially those originating from the left. The expropriation of oil fields, mining and large estates in 1938, the refuge granted Spanish republicans and members of the International Brigades in 1939, and the accord of mutual support between the government and syndicalist organizations all favored the formation of artistic and cultural groups willing to take part in the consolidation of revolutionary ideals which, until that point, had made little progress. Among these organizations was the Taller de Gráfica Popular, the Workshop of Popular Graphics. → more

The story of Lena Bergner is relevant to the history of architecture and design on account of her career passing through different ideological and cultural contexts. Here we will discuss her life and work, focusing on her training in the Bauhaus, her time in the USSR and her time in Mexico, where, along with her husband the architect Hannes Meyer, over a ten-year period she undertook cultural projects of great importance. → more

Cristine Takuá is an indigenous philosopher, educator, and artisan who lives in the village of Rio Silveira, state of São Paulo, Brazil. She was invited to present a contemporary perspective on questions and tensions raised by interactions between the indigenous communities and the mainstream art system, as well as to address Brazil’s specific social and political context. → more

Not by nature acquisitive and certainly not art collectors, Josef and Anni Albers began in 1936 to collect Mexican figurines and other artifacts unearthed from that land’s memory. They described the country, which they first visited in 1935, as “the promised land of abstract art.” Returning to Black Mountain College Anni Albers and Alexander Reed began experimenting with everyday articles to create a strange and beautiful collection of objects of personal adornment inspired by their visit to Mexico. → more

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy understood herself as a traveling observer. In her book Native Genius in Anonymous Architecture Moholy-Nagy sought buildings that survived time because they had developed naturally out of the North American reality. In doing so she did not define one style, method or area but rather showed how builders found creative solutions to specific problems of site, climate, materials and skills. → more

The global developments that led in 1942 to the appointment of Hannes Meyer, second Bauhaus director, as head of the workshop for popular graphic art, Taller de Gráfica Popular (henceforth referred to as the TGP), made it a focal point for migrating Europeans in flight from fascism. This essay aims to shed light on how the TGP was influenced by Europeans granted asylum by Mexico before and during World War Two, and, conversely, to explore the degree to which these exiled visual artists, writers, and architects’ ideas came to be influenced by their contact with artists active in the TGP. → more

Paul Klee’s Carpet, 1927, creates a conundrum for scholars as it does not neatly fit the existing theoretical models concerning how European artists engage with non-Western art and culture, while at the same time opening up exciting new avenues for inquiry. → more